100,000 Foreigners Become Italian Citizens

More than 100,000 foreigners obtained Italian citizenship last year, a new report by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) has revealed.

The figure includes those who obtained citizenship through marriage to Italian citizens, naturalisation, automatic transmission of citizenship to minor children whose foreign parents became Italian citizens, as well as children born in Italy who decided to become Italians when they turned 18 years old.

More than a half (51,4%) of foreigners who became Italian citizens last year were women. This is because the number of foreign women marrying Italian men is slightly higher than that of foreign men marrying Italian women.

The regions with the highest number of foreigners also produced the highest number of new Italian citizens. Out of the 100,712 new Italian citizens, 25,9% were residents in Lombardia, 14,5% in Veneto and 14,1% Emilia Romagna.